Most helpful positive review

This is the ideal kit to get your child on the road to understanding electricity. Everything just snaps together like building blocks, and there's no need for screwdrivers, soldering irons, electrical tape or testers.

The instruction manual is easy to read, and includes diagrams for 101 projects. With a little help for the first few, a child can easily work their way through the book with minimal adult supervision.

The video shows a few of the projects - a switch circuit with light bulb, running a DC motor and fan, a Space War alarm combo, and a flying saucer. There's also a clip of a lamp and fan in series, showing that the fan takes a while to turn at full speed because of inertia.

There are also games, sirens, projects activated by clapping or light, and projects that introduce digital circuits. There are three kits that are more advanced, but you can also get upgrade kits to take each to the next level.

If you're looking for an educational toy that your child will really enjoy, I recommend you put this one on your list.

Most helpful critical review

A great EDUCATIONAL kit, but not really a toy. It took a little one on one time with my son (8yrs) to get him going on this himself. He's proud of all the projects that he is able to complete. But it would have been helpful to know before hand that this set makes several different types of loud, IRRITATING noise. This kit does not seem to have the lasting entertainment value that other bulding toys have--my son likes to check off each project he has completed, and as he has completed most now (3 weeks after Christmas) the set is seldom played with. Experimentation with the kit is a little nervewracking for him as shortcircuiting the set could potentially ruin some of the components. His twin received the Snap Rover set with the idea that the two sets could combine for more creative fun. That hasn't happened.

I wish I'd bought this set for homeschooling purposes, not as a Christmas gift.

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This is the ideal kit to get your child on the road to understanding electricity. Everything just snaps together like building blocks, and there's no need for screwdrivers, soldering irons, electrical tape or testers.

The instruction manual is easy to read, and includes diagrams for 101 projects. With a little help for the first few, a child can easily work their way through the book with minimal adult supervision.

The video shows a few of the projects - a switch circuit with light bulb, running a DC motor and fan, a Space War alarm combo, and a flying saucer. There's also a clip of a lamp and fan in series, showing that the fan takes a while to turn at full speed because of inertia.

There are also games, sirens, projects activated by clapping or light, and projects that introduce digital circuits. There are three kits that are more advanced, but you can also get upgrade kits to take each to the next level.

If you're looking for an educational toy that your child will really enjoy, I recommend you put this one on your list.

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The best point in favour of this product is that it is lego style toy that does not intimidate a child with intricate electronic components. My 6-1/2 year old daughter started playing with it and was very excited to have completed her first project to light a bulb with a switch. Theories of electricity followed naturally when initially the bulb did not lightup. I showed her the shiny metal strip beneath the connectors and explained conductivity a little.Another major advantage is that there are mostly no wires, and the components are hidden from view, giving it a very un-complicated look that a child can easily comprehend. This difference makes possible for my daughter to actually play with it.The only problem seems to be the quality of plastic used. It looks as if it might break if a component was bent while snapping in. Still, I highly recommend this product.

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We bought this toy, and at the beginning my children did not play with it , it was kind of "complicated", different from traditional toys, many pieces, etc... It was mysterious. One rainy day I started playing with it myself, grabbed the manual and suddenly all of my children wanted to play, it wasn't complicated at all y was super interesting and fun. All you need to do is do a couple of projects with them, so they can learn how to use it. We don't call the pieces by its name yet, but it will be my next step, to explain each part, what is it for, why is important, so they can learn. Since that day I always buy it as a birthday gift for the 5 years old children that have play with us while at my house and up. I'II recommend to use it with an adult to help them so it will be more fun for all. We have made the radio, the alarm, the water activated alarm, etc...

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My son has a thousand motors working without this kit, I rarely can slow him down. I bought this and he loves it! He will sit and play with it. This kit stimulates his brain enough that he doesn't have to run around, tearing down the house, chipping the walls, screaching, teasing and peeling paint. Anyone with ADHD kids out there know what I mean? Gotta have something like this, for kids like these!!!It doesn't contain a huge amount of pieces like a box of blocks and after a few tries with adult help, I would say an eight year old can do this alone. It isn't dangerous. There are a couple of parts that can be torn easily by rough kids but a lot of stuff can still be made any way.Make lazer sounds, sirens, make songs come out, or fans, a ufo spin off toy (launches in the air),several types of games to play, a doorbell, a couple of computer part thingies, other light blinkie things, even stuff your kid can only dream up. Has lots of noisy sounds that will drive you nuts so send the kid somewhere else. LOL.

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My son got this for his 5th birthday. It took him a day to figure out how to follow the diagrams. Within 3 days he was creating his own circuts. I heard him teaching his 4 year old brother all about electricity. He said. "No John don't lay that across the battery it will short circuit. and, "The circuit has to make a complete circle from battery to battery for the electricity to flow through it." Never put water anywhere near anything electric." etc...... He just started Kindergarten. I know they are not learning about elctricity yet, so he had to of learned all of this from this toy. I was impressed. He is impresssed with himself. He's taking it into school for show and tell so he can show his teachers what he can do. This product is completely safe too. Think of it like legos with electrical parts. They will not get a shock. Just don't give it to a kid that will swallow the pieces.

I buy the snap circuit sc-100 for his classmates when he is in invited to their birthday parties too. What a great gift!

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Think of this as the Legos approach to wiring. We've bought two for two boys here (I'm trying to draw out the girl...) and are considering a trade-up for the boy who methodically did ALL of the experiments. I grew up with the little jumper wire and spring terminal kits which do not provide anywhere near as appealing and understandable a layout and were much harder to work with and troubleshoot. Contrariwise, is hard to improvise with the fixed shape of the components and connectors, but that's not really important for this age group. Pieces do of course get lost, but how much can you ask of the little darlings (don't flush them!!!).

One quibble, more a problem with the next larger kit: I think they cheat claiming the kit supports XXX [30-750] different projects. Many projects are subtle enough variations on what came before that they don't count for much.

I'm really very pleased with these kits -- high praise from toy-jaded me -- they are a genuine improvement in learning and, more importantly, *playing* with electronics.

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I remember when I was a kid, building radio kits and playing with electronic gadgets of all kinds. I definitely learned a lot and had lots of fun (I ended up studying electronic engineering in university). However, while fun, I had lots of frustrating experiences with those kits. Fiddly wires, annoying connections that were hard to make, etc.

I saw this product on Amazon here, read some reviews and decided to try it out. I was a little wary since I recently got some other science toys for my 7.5 yr old son and he wasn't particularly enamored with them. Not that they were bad; just that they were hard to appreciate for him. Directions were hard to follow for his age, etc.

This snap circuits kit is quite the opposite. Simply amazing. I introduced it as "lego electronics". And it really is. It's really simple to build all the circuits. After a few false starts, my son was building the circuits almost completely by himself. The pieces are simple to snap together. So easy compared to what I remembered.

What impressed me the most is the manual. Few toys devote so much effort to the manual. Full color, easy to understand diagrams, and straightforward text.

The only thing they could do more of is explain the electricity principles a bit more. However, for mid-twenty-dollars, I can't really complain. And I believe they do have a teachers-companion guide or something like that which presumably has the extra educational material in it.

I thought some of the experiments could be grouped differently to make a more logical flow. However, I think they put some thought into interleaving the "boring-but-important" projects with more fun noise-making-and-light-flashing ones to keep the kids interested.

Overall, an amazing job. I can't imagine how anyone could better this. Fantastic stuff. The guys who came up with this deserve a medal.

This is a wonderful "toy"! My 10 year-old loves it! Without going through all of the experiments, he has already started altering the projects for different results. There are explanations with almost all of the projects explaining WHY it works the way it does. I doubt my son is reading all of them--but he is obviously reading some of the explanations because he is explaining to me what is happening!

Basically, there are all these "circuits" and they snap together easily, and remove as easily. The snap is great in that they stay together quite well so that people using it won't get frustrated if it were to fall apart. The person using the item almost doesn't need to read, because if they just follow the picture, they can "do" it.

The box says for ages 8-108--and I have to admit that although I have no real interest in electronics, I have enjoyed some of the projects my son has made. One WARNING: the speaker is quite loud--exactly what the littlest kids in our house love!

As to durability, sometimes the speaker doesn't work very well, or maybe it is one of the circuits. But it an otherwise wonderful product--and I will need to eventually purchase the Regular version Snap Circuits (as opposed to Snap Circuits Jr. and Snap Circuits Pro), since the regular version is listed as for ages 10 and up, so I am hoping that it is a bit more challenging.

I knew that the little one would be jealous of his older brother when he would see the larger box for the SC-750R, so I got him this one so that he & I could work some of the projects together as well.

Now, the project book and all of the pieces come with the SC-750R; however, I wanted to be sure that the two had their separate sets of equipment and not fight over who wants to do what.

So far, we have only unboxed the SC-100...we have not yet put any projects together. We will be doing that tomorrow, however he is already chomping at the bit to do something with it. As we assemble the projects I will be adding pictures and/or video of what he's doing and updating this review. I do have one thing to say, though: as I had mentioned in my review for the SC-750R, the SC-100 does feel like it can not take much abuse since it is mostly plastic. But, once again, we have not put together any projects yet.

****

The next day - so we ripped through doing about 6 or 8 of the projects. He loved it. I've added a video of him doing the second project. Now remember, this is a 6-year-old putting this circuit together.

In regards to my earlier comment of the durability or the Snap Circuits, I still think some care needs to be taken in handling them. When placing the pieces on the Base Grid (breadboard / circuit board equivalent), you should press on the nipples of the connectors and not on the center of the piece. I know this seems like "Common Sense" information, but when a child gets excited they don't tend to think of the little things like that; so keep giving them little (and nicely put) reminders to press on the ends of the pieces and not straight down on the middle.